Dueling headlines on memeorandum this morning.
AP, “Trump is planning 100 executive orders starting Day 1 on border, deportations and other priorities.”
President-elect Donald Trump is preparing more than 100 executive orders starting Day One of the new White House, in what amounts to a shock-and-awe campaign on border security, deportations and a rush of other policy priorities.
Trump told Republican senators about the onslaught ahead during a private meeting on Capitol Hill. Many of the actions are expected to launch on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, when he takes office. Trump top adviser Stephen Miller outlined for the GOP senators the border security and immigration enforcement measures that are likely to launch soonest. Axios first reported on Trump and his team’s presentation.
“There will be a substantial number,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
Allies of the president-elect have been preparing a stack of executive orders that Trump could sign quickly on a wide range of topics – from the U.S.-Mexico border clampdown to energy development to federal Schedule F workforce rules, school gender policies and vaccine mandates, among other day-one promises made during his campaign.
NYT, “Biden Issues Sweeping Deportation Protections Before Trump Takes Office.”
The Biden administration on Friday issued sweeping extensions of deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of people from Sudan, Ukraine, El Salvador and Venezuela in a move that makes it almost impossible for President-elect Donald J. Trump to swiftly strip the benefit when he takes office.
The extension of Temporary Protected Status, as the program is called, allows the immigrants to remain in the country with work permits and a shield from deportation for another 18 months from the expiration of their current protection in the spring. Late last year, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken recommended the protections be extended in a series of letters.
For decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have designated the protection for citizens of countries that are in upheaval and deemed unsafe to return to. President Biden has expanded who could receive the status, as war erupted in Ukraine and instability gripped countries like Venezuela and Haiti.
“These designations are rooted in careful review and interagency collaboration to ensure those affected by environmental disasters and instability are given the protections they need while continuing to contribute meaningfully to our communities,” said Representative Adriano Espaillat of New York, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Mr. Trump has vowed to end the program, at least for certain countries. Immigrant advocates had been urging the Biden administration to extend it for many of those countries before he takes office.
It is a continued flaw in our system that an administration that lost at the ballot box is not only still governing but actively working to thwart the policies of the election winner campaigned on more than two months later.
The AP report notes this, however:
While executive actions are common on the first day of a new White House, as a new president puts a stamp on certain priorities, what Trump and his team are planning is an executive punch unseen in modern times as he prepares to wield power in untested ways, bypassing the legislative machinery of Congress.
My strong suspicion is that many of these executive orders will be quickly struck down. I don’t see how the President has the authority to strip civil service protections enshrined in statute, for example, by fiat. But these are indeed things that he repeatedly promised to do on the campaign trail and he gets to let the courts tell him No.
